Sunrise on Monday, May 5

When we got up, we were surprised to see that that all the boats were facing different directions. It means the wind and current were going different directions, and some boats were more pushed by the wind and others were more pushed by the current.

The water was amazingly shallow and clear. We could see the anchor from the bow!

First thing this morning, a lady came on the radio and sang to us about the rules and regulations of the park, that the fee to anchor was 50 cents per foot per night, and that we could pay online. It was like an a cappella opera.

Yesterday, the families had told us that the coral rock near our boat that didn’t have any plants growing on it had nice snorkeling, so this morning, we went snokeling around it. There was a strong current, which was hard to swim against one way, and the other way, we flew past the rock so fast that we didn’t have time to appreciate what we were seeing. The northeast corner had a particularly nice patch of coral with quite a few fish. It certainly wasn’t spectacular, but it was worth the time/effort. Christi tried to take underwater photos and video, but none of them came out.

In the evening, we went to the beach with the other families for a little while. Yesterday, Eric and Christi hadn’t walked around the island, so today they checked it out. There was a little path that traversed the width of the island, ending at the ocean on the east side.

It was scenic with the big rock and crashing waves.

Looking northeast

Looking south

One of the “things to do” here was walk out to the rock at low tide and climb it. The views from the top were supposed to be lovely. We thought that rock looked a little too jagged to climb without real shoes, so it wasn’t something we wanted to try. We walked down to the north end of the beach. Here was the rock from the north end.

As a side note… many islands in the Bahamas are privately owned. Much to our surprise, we found out that the Bell Cay, the island on the northwest side of the anchorage, was purchased for $100 million in 2009. He has built several structures on the island, including two houses, three guest cottages, and employee housing. A channel was dredged through park waters so the owner, the Aga Khan, could get his yacht into his dock. How much power does this guy have to be allowed to purchase private land inside a national park and destroy part of the park with dredging? Interestingly, Justin Trudeau and his family have vacationed on Bell Island three times, and apparently Trudeau got into trouble as at least one of the trips violated ethical rules. John Kerry has also stayed there. This was the little that we could see of the buildings.

The twilight was lovely.